Beaten by a better side - with a huge contribution from us by way of some dreadful handling and bombed opportunities; I guess there was always that potential when Saints were effectively playing with freedom, and we were playing with a complicated set of permutations about our league position - MC played that down, but there will have been pressure in the camp to deliver.

How much better are Saints sans Cunningham?! Same players - different team; impressive work by the new fella - or sly maneuvering by the players to get shot of him!

I don't think anyone is disappointed in finishing in 5th spot.

The disappointment is the manner of yesterday's defeat as a stand alone game and the extra rewards that were just a grasp away.

Disappointed we missed our chance to go third but not in any way disappointed with the team.
That's just how sport goes.
I can see Sts making it all the way to Old Trafford.

If we win our next 7 games, or at least some of them, it won't matter where we finished after 23 rounds.

My target at the beginning of the season was to make the 8 and be competitive in the 8s, winning at least 1 game.
Still yet to achieve that but I have every confidence in smashing that objective.

Win or lose, a lot of stuff gets said in the immediate aftermath of any game.
If we win, we are the best team ever and if we lose, the opposite get's said and we all look back and see that it was never quite as bright or, in this case, quite as dark as it appeared at the time.
Yes, we were a long way short of Saint's yesterday bur, we have 7 games left to make our mark on the season.
The most optimistic pre season predictions, had us finishing 6th and some had us down as low as 11 and using this measure, in fact, any measure, Trinity have been fantastic this season.
The Super 8's will be really tough.
Most clubs in there are finding their form and the battle for 3rd and 4th is going to go down to the last round of the season.
The 3 clubs below us, Saints, Wigan and Shudds are all finding decent form and we may end up finishing 7th / 8th.
However, until we cant make it, we should be aiming for a top 4 finish and I will be there cheering the boys along the way and dreaming of a coveted top 4 finish !

Come on Trin !

I left it 24hrs to say anything because I was so disappointed by our performance yesterday. But the reality is we can make this a disaster that affects us going into the 8's or we can just see it for what it is; we lost to a good side on the day. Next week, viewed on our whole season, we are perfectly capable of beating any team in the 8, some with more chance than the others, but I think we are capable of 5/7 games wins here which might see us in the semis. Come on Trin!

A lot now depends on the fixture schedule. Saints then Cas will no doubt be what the bods have in mind for us as opening fixtures..

I have to say when you see the highlights, we did a lot of good things yesterday. We weren't rubbish.....just not our best.

If we get 5/7 wins in the Super 8's we would definitely be in the semi finals.

This is exactly it for me, we were good and there were some great individual efforts but for whatever reason, we looked constantly out of ideas and on the back foot. I'd put yesterday in the top 3 worst games of the season, along with Salford in the Cup and Leeds Away. What's odd though is in those games we looked dominated, but yesterday we didn't. Saints were good, but individually no better than us, however they seemed to work far better as a team which is why they always looked to be on the front foot. Yesterday was by no means the end of the season, but it's made the final 7 games much more difficult as we've lost the cushion we'd built up both in points on the table and points difference.

Correct, it just wasn't our day - why some people can't accept that is beyond me - it's swings and roundabout yet to some one defeat is a disaster.

Always a bit disappointing when you go into a game full of hope and one that means so much and come up so short...it wasn't through lack of effort though, just comprehensively beaten by a better team on the day....I also think knowing what we needed to do played a part mentally, especially when on a position of having to chase the game...

It's simple where we lost the game...people can say stats are misleading and sometimes they can be but on this occasion they tell the true story...they made just short of 600 metres more than us in the game and I'd hazard a guess that's the biggest difference against any team all season....our big men down the middle who so often this season have laid the platform were a clear 2nd best....Huby, Walker and Fifita only managed a combined total of 141 metres....Dave usually does that on his own most games...

Because of that we were never on the front foot and never won the ruck all game...

I'm a little concerned for Huby...6 carries for 27 metres is way short of what he's capable of...CC said the other week they were managing him through and I think it's definitely affected his recent performances...hopefully this two week break will be a real benefit for him and he can get back to his brilliant and influential form of most of the season..

It's still been a remarkable season and one no Trinity fan can be disappointed with...we can still have an impact in the super 8's too...the quality is definitely there...maybe now teams will just expect us to drop away which could work in our favour!

I have to say I was as upset as anyone by the manner of the defeat - I really thought we'd make a game of it but we blew it. Why? well we were subject of some very questionable decisions and we did blow a couple of chances BUT the real reason is Saints were on fire and have come good at the right time. In reality we couldn't live with them. They were yards quicker than us in attack and defence, but we have a chance to redeem ourselves (IF we get better!) in the play-offs when we meet them again!

Agree with most of that. One thing the stats don't show and it's something not many teams have done to our forwards this year was put our forwards on their backs. I could probably count the amount of times we landed on our fronts on one hand. It really slowed us down and went in large ways towards those metres stats. The opposite for saints who landed on their fronts time after time.